Polly Bemis

Idaho's most famous Chinese woman
resident, Polly Bemis, arrived in Idaho Territory in 1872. She has
received widespread attention since the publication of a
biographical novel, Thousand Pieces of Gold, by Ruthanne
Lum McCunn, and the release of a movie with the same title,
loosely based on the book. Since Polly Bemis was inducted into the
Idaho Hall of Fame in August 1996, it is important that we both
celebrate the known facts about her and allow the stereotypical,
undocumented legends to die out.

Polly Bemis's life has been greatly
romanticized by many people who have written about her. There is
no evidence for the truth of the most persistent legend, that she
was "won in a poker game." As she neared death in 1933, both Polly
and C. J. Czizek, "one of her most intimate friends from the
Salmon country," vehemently denied the rumor.

Another common misconception, not in
McCunn's book, is that Polly Bemis was once a prostitute. Again,
there is no evidence for that assumption. Although a Chinese
resident of Warrens (now Warren), Idaho paid $2500 for her, and
had her brought to that community by an old Chinese man (alas, not
the handsome, young "Jim" of book and movie), Polly's owner
undoubtedly purchased her as his concubine. In China at that time,
a wealthy man might have one or more wives, plus one or more
concubines, all living in the same household. Our term "mistress"
most closely approximates the term, but it does not equate with
the concept as it existed in China, where a concubine held a
legally-recognized position as a family member, and whose children
were considered legitimate offspring of the man and his primary
wife.

Chinese custom decreed that if a man
immigrated to the United States to work, his wife should remain at
home in China to look after his parents. While abroad, however, he
might take with him, or acquire, a concubine to perform "wifely
duties" (see, The Concubine's Children, by Denise Chong).
A Chinese man fortunate enough to have a concubine would not use
her as a prostitute because he would "lose face" through sharing
her with others.

Other myths about Polly include the
use of the name "Lalu" for her; there is no evidence for that
name. Also, there is no evidence that her owner's name was "Hong
King."

We do not yet know how Polly managed
to extricate herself from her Chinese owner; perhaps he died.
Whatever happened, it occurred before mid-1880 since that year's
U.S. Census lists her as living with, but not married to, Charlie
Bemis. In September, 1890 a "gambling affray" resulted in Bemis
being shot. He hovered near death for some time, and Polly nursed
him back to health. They married in 1894, and moved down to the
Salmon River where they took up a mining claim, not a homestead.

For the last several years Priscilla
Wegars has been collecting documentary information about Polly
Bemis in preparation for several, more accurate, works about her
life. Those currently available are the book Polly Bemis: A Chinese American
Pioneer, a brief biography for 4th grade to adult
readers, and the lengthy chapter "Polly Bemis: Lurid Life or
Literary Legend?" in Wild
Women
of the Old West, edited by Glenda Riley and Richard W.
Etulain, 45-68, 200-203, Golden, CO: Fulcrum. Proposed books are a
pictorial biography (8th grade level), as well as a full-length,
footnoted, work for young adults/adults. Wegars has also taught a
summer school/enrichment class for the University of Idaho in
which participants compare both the book and the movie with what
is known about the real Polly Bemis, while visiting Polly's
restored cabin, now easily accessible only by jet boat. For more
information about this class, see Tours.
A slide lecture is
also available, as are Lessons for
4th graders based on the book.

Scheduled PowerPoint
Presentation with Book Signing:

Boise, Idaho, Thursday, July 11, 2013, 9:00 a.m., Riverside
Hotel, 2900 Chinden, hosted by the Wild West History Association
and sponsored by the Idaho Humanities Council Speakers Bureau.

Please email pwegars@moscow.com
to schedule a PowerPoint presentation and/or a book signing.

F. S. Louie Company

About 1950 the F. S. Louie Company of Berkeley, California, began
wholesaling china to restaurants. Following the founder's
death in 1996, his son continued the business for a few years.
Before closing the business, he generously gave the AACC many
examples of Chinese restaurant wares that remained in the company's
inventory. In addition, the AACC has two company catalogues,
from 1960 and 1983. When compared, these show differences in
patterns offered for sale and in prices charged to
restaurants. The major patterns are God of Longevity (above),
Dragon/Phoenix, Bird/Flower, and Women/Characters. As the
above paper sticker indicates, most of this ware was made in Japan
because, for political reasons, the U.S. government did not allow
U.S. firms to import anything from The People's Republic of China
for many years. For more information on the F. S. Louie
Company, from which this brief account was taken, see Amber
Creighton, "Chinese Restaurant Ware and Its Importance to Asian
American Archaeology," Journal of
Northwest Anthropology, 36(2):227-240, Fall 2002.

At the time of her article, Ms. Creighton had located wares marked
with the F. S. Louie name or logo and bearing the names of Chinese
restaurants in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Ohio,
Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Washington,
DC. Since then, others from Florida, Maine, Maryland,
Massachusetts, Michigan, Virginia, and Wisconsin have been offered
for sale on the Internet. The AACC is always happy to learn of
additional F. S. Louie wares marked with restaurant names and
addresses.

The F. S. Louie Company has used several different base marks during
the course of their operation. They are based on stylizations
of (a), the Chinese character for thunder, prounounced "louie" in
Cantonese. Mark (b) is probably the first one used by the
company; mark (c) is later, and mark (d) is the most recent
(Creighton 2002:235). All three marks are represented on F. S. Louie
ceramics in the AACC.

Scans by Brad Codr.

Another F. S. Louie mark is represented in the AACC by an oval
platter in the "Longevity" pattern, AACC-2001-258; the "Longevity"
pattern is different from the "God of Longevity" pattern. This
mark appears on F. S. Louie ceramics manufactured for the company by
the Sterling China Company; see Barbara J. Conroy, Restaurant China Volume 2:
Identification & Value Guide for Restaurant, Airline, Ship
& Railroad Dinnerware (Paducah, KY: Collector Books,
1999), 616.Scan by Brad Codr.

"Chinese
Tunnels"; the illustrations
above are from Baker City, Oregon

Many communities where large
numbers of Chinese people once lived are today rumored to have
so-called "Chinese tunnels" under downtown buildings and streets.
This myth continues to be perpetuated despite overwhelming
evidence to the contrary. For the most authoritative debunking of
this myth, see David Chuenyan Lai, The Forbidden City within Victoria, Victoria,
BC: Orca, 1991. Chapter 4, "Tunnels of the Forbidden Town," pp.
34-39, details how the myth became established. Lai's "Summary,"
p. 39, can be applied to any city with reported "Chinese tunnels."

During Priscilla Wegars' extensive
research on the Chinese in the West, she has never found any
documentation or substantiation for these rumored "Chinese
tunnels." In cities where the Chinese owned buildings and utilized
the basements, the latter may have been subdivided or partitioned
into smaller areas as living quarters or opium-smoking
establishments, with hallways, but these in no way can be
considered "tunnels."

In Lewiston, Idaho, for example, Erb
Hardware Company President Jeanine Bennett graciously led Wegars
on a tour of the store's basement areas, in response to a local
newspaper's suggestion that it contained entrances to such
"tunnels." Instead, the arched openings actually lead to
passageways under the sidewalk (today either in use as storage
areas, or blocked up) that were once used for delivery access, or
to admit light. The architectural term for these passageways is
"sidewalk vaults."

Although the sidewalk openings
(metal doors) or glass blocks to allow light (round or
rectangular; eventually colored purple by the sun), no longer
exist in the sidewalk around Erb's, they can be seen in the
sidewalks of many towns and cities throughout the West. The
passageways underneath them are simply access channels, and have
no connection with early Chinese residents. The same can be said
for the so-called "Chinese tunnels" rumored to exist in Boise and
Pocatello, Idaho; Baker City and Pendleton, Oregon; Seattle and
Tacoma, Washington; Victoria, BC, and many other places.

Wegars would appreciate receiving
information about other communities with rumored "Chinese tunnels"
and would especially welcome descriptive information from anyone
who has visited what they were told was a "Chinese tunnel." In
Pendleton, Oregon, for example, the "Pendleton Underground" tour
takes visitors into basements that some guides call "Chinese
tunnels." Although there was apparently once a Chinese laundry in
one basement, the tour presents no convincing evidence to indicate
that any other Chinese people once lived "underground" there;
openings in the exterior walls of the basements lead to passages
under the sidewalk (sidewalk vaults) similar to those described
for Lewiston, Idaho.

For an unpublished research paper on
so-called "Chinese tunnels," please contact <pwegars@moscow.com>.